Going Home

It was Friday and my only client appointment was a Zoom at 9 am. Should be done by 9:40, then breakfast. I told Rocky we were free after that. I asked what he would like to do with the rest of the day. A few minutes later: visit the neighborhood where I grew up.

A simple request, but like all of us, we grew up in more than one neighborhood. Rocky’s first neighborhood was the Little Italy area where UIC now stands. The university acquired the needed land to build the new campus in the early 60’s. Residents were displaced. Businesses were shuttered. One of those was Rocky’s dad’s grocery store.

And so, they moved to Franklin Park on Mannheim Road. His dad opened another grocery in a vacant storefront. Eventually outgrown, another storefront was built nearby. A vacant lot behind the store and its parking lot was the site of their new home, built from scratch. This was at the corner of Mannheim and Fullerton Roads.

That was the neighborhood Rocky wanted to visit. Not the UIC site; nothing was there. But Franklin Park? Yes. We ventured forth.

Two old guys 76+ got in the car and drove in mid-day traffic – I-88 to Eisenhower Expressway to Mannheim Road. Then north to Fullerton, hung a right and stopped. The store was gone. A large strip mall now stood in its place. But the house was still there. We stopped in front. The yard was well kept, the attached garage had been converted to living space, and three cars sat in the driveway. The neighborhood to the immediate west was all commercial. To the south and north, all commercial and much traffic. Fullerton at that spot is wide and immediately off of Mannheim. Busy. Congested. Traffic noise supreme.

Catching his breath, Rocky gazed at the home. This was where he lived before going to school. This is where his mom and dad made life routines with oh so many memories. He could almost see them, there in the yard, or there in the window. Then to elementary parochial school in Northlake until High School, West Leyden High. We drove by his church, his school, and the high school. We drove around the town centers he frequented back in the day. He recognized old buildings and looked at many new ones. His demeanor was pensive. Now silent because of his laryngectomy two years ago, his hands went to his mouth as he gasped in breath through his stoma. The silence held sound. I knew he was stunned at what he saw.

Not home again, just visiting old memories through the mind’s eye. The last time he remembered seeing this place was 40 years ago.

We started the trek back home, this time using surface routes. Through all the suburbs and crazy traffic. Revisiting many sights familiar to me as well in my field career experience. Slowly we left the past behind and retreated to our present. Once home, we napped. Over an hour we napped. And thought.

I mulled over my own return visit to past homes in Chicagoland. The past 50 years is easy; all Wheaton, Warrenville and West Chicago. Before that was Lake Shore Drive (3900 North); Hyde Park (Seminary and the University of Chicago), Oak Park and Knox College in Galesburg. Well, I’ve been past the Lake Shore Drive location, and visited Knox a few times, once within the past two years. What’s left is a meander through two neighborhoods in Oak Park I once called home, and then Hyde Park. I learned my seminary building has been repurposed by the U of C, but the seminary built a new building next to the Law School. I feel the need to visit these places. Soon. I don’t know why.

I know I can’t go home again, but I wonder how these places that meant so much to me once will rekindle memories fond or otherwise. I suspect we will venture out again, two old guys in a small SUV, doing battle with the dizzying array of traffic and congestion unimagined 56 years ago. I wonder how we will do!

May 4, 2021